Why do Christians try to preserve their lives?

I saw this question posed in a video and I have been wondering about it ever since. At a general level it is this: If Christians believe they go to heaven when they die, why do they preserve their life through use of seatbelts and other such safety devices? Why are they not ecstatically happy if their kids get murdered?

I also made a philosoraptor pic to ask the seatbelt question. it is the attachment.

Yes, I couldn't agree more! Rosemary's arguments seem extremely similar to those of Richard Dawkins. The only thing in which my opinion differs from yours is that I do not consider that a good thing... :D :D

I for one don't claim that Jesus never existed. He may well have done. But where is the evidence beyond all reasonable doubt that he did, and that he was the Messiah and Son of God? There is something drastically wrong if faith is required in such an important issue to mankind.

Jesus hardly made the greatest sacrifice. He knew he would be resurrected anyway.

We must question the story logic of an all-knowing, all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes - Gene Roddenberry

The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike

Faith means not wanting to know what is true – Friedrich Nietzsche

Religions are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies – Thomas Jefferson

I don't have to prove that god doesn't exist. However, show me how you would prove Zeus and Ra don't exist, and I'll use your method.

You no more picked your God than you did your language. You don't have "Faith" you have Programming

Religion is based upon nothing but non-verifiable supernatural beliefs. It's founded on nothing that is real.

Ondrej, I'm interested in what parts of Genesis you think actually happened. I'm also interested in what makes you think any of it is 'true'. Do you think someone who just happened to pick up Genesis and read it would come to the same conclusions as you?

Ok, so no matter how impossible or inaccurate any verse might be, you feel there is 'a truth' to it of some sort that comes from an invisible, immeasurable, undefined entity with whom you have somehow managed to identify. You realize that only another person indoctrinated to your cult could possibly come to the same conclusion as you, although their interpretations of the details will likely vary from yours.

Now, since I am obviously not an indoctrinate of your cult, how can you possibly expect me to think of your beliefs as anything other than delusional?

According to you, the parts of Genesis you think actually happened are anything that fits your current belief set. When that changes, and so do what you take literally, you will no doubt deny that things are any different. That is how the irrational part of the brain works - it concocts stories that convince its owner, based on the person's current beliefs.

In other words, your subjective interpretation of scripture is infallible. Amazing!

"The scripture is true - -"because it teaches us the truths that we need to know in order to be with God."

You win a prize for the best piece of circular reasoning I have read in a while. It is you who define what is "true" and what is "truth" in both instances. That means that the Bible is "true" because it contains "truths" and these things are whatever you say. Brilliant. Another instance of your infallibility. Wow!

"As to reaching the same conclusions: if that person were a Christian, the conclusions would probably be very similar."

This translates as "the person is a Christian if and only if they reach conclusions that are similar to mine". That makes you an infallible authority again. Wow!

So all three of your arguments rest on the assumption that your beliefs are infallible and that you are all the authority that you, or anyone else, need to reach a truthful conclusion. I think that is called "The argument from intellectual arrogance".

"Every single time that a supernatural cause has been proposed, it has turned out to be wrong. This mode of thinking has a 100% rate of failure. Not good! However, people continue to believe that their favorite god created the universe, created life, works miracles, answers prayers, etcetera. Believe it or not, but this mode of thinking is about as intellectually arrogant as you can possibly get. Someone who says "God did ________" is essentially saying "no amount of scientific investigation will ever solve this problem. I know that if we went a trillion years into the future, science will still have not discovered the answer to the question of ________." So basically, by holding supernatural beliefs, you have to claim that you are in fact, omniscient. The only possible way you could ever think that something was caused by something supernatural would be to have a perfect understanding of the workings of the universe, and then know that there is no naturalistic explanation. That's a big claim."

"In order for the theist to even get close to proving that God really did ________, they have not only to disprove all the current scientific models of explanation, they have to disprove every possibly explanation that could ever be presented, even if that explanation won't be proposed for another 10 million years. Obviously, this is an impossibly task. Therefore, claiming that "God did ________" is a logically impossible position to hold."

"...[E]arly Christian writers maintained that a self-chosen death was a goal for the genuinely pious to aspire. The number of Christian martyrs and mass suicides rose so quickly that the ruling Jewish faction decided to forbid eulogies and public mourning for those who died by their own hand. This action began the stigmatization of suicide in Judeo-Christian culture. The first church-led condemnation of suicide occurred when Jewish leaders refused to allow the bodies of Christian suicide victims to be buried in hallowed ground. The few Christian condemnations of suicide came from the notion that suicide was to be despised because it was the action of the betrayer of Jesus. Thus, suicide developed a “guilt by association” because of Judas’ death by hanging."

"The first Christian to publicly denounce suicide as a sin was St. Augustine in the 4th Century. The basis of Augustine’s condemnation was the ubiquitous acts of suicide among Christians. Augustine’s influence on church doctrine resulted in a series of conciliar developments. In 305AD, the Council of Guadix purged from the list of martyrs all who had died by their own hand. Using the pretext of piety, the 348AD Council of Carthage condemned those who had chosen self death for personal reasons and the 363AD Council of Braga condemned and denied proper burial rites for all known suicides."

Although this web site is just a distant source -- there are secondary sources and primary sources which can also be found on the net. Nevertheless, xianity remains a life hating, nihilistic death cult --